God's Handiwork
Ephesians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 6 viewssermon number 3 , the start of chapter 2
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
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As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
We begin chapter 2 of Ephesians with a great lesson that we will get to in a second. As a reminder this letter was written to churches that were generally doing a good job. So the letter is meant to help us further our faith. It is meant to deeper our faith and help us to go out into those deeper waters with Jesus. This is exactly what church is supposed to be about. The fundamental mission of every church needs to be helping people find Jesus and if you already found Him then the next part of that is growing in your faith. So let’s look back at verse 1 here.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
You were dead in your transgressions and sins The key to this phrase is that you were dead. You are no longer dead but at one time you were. We all were dead in our sins. Every person falls short of the glory of God. Paul says the same thing in Romans
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
When we did Galatians we had an incomplete list but a good starting point of the different ways God gives us grace. This is another one to add to that list. Through the grace of God we are no longer dead in our sins. However this is a point that we must all remember that without that Grace , that Grace that is given to us each and every day we are right back where we were. It is important for us to remember that we are all sinners. This is one big reason why people do not attend church anymore. They feel like their lives must be perfect. One you cannot be perfect. There is no perfect church. It doesn’t exist. However when we remember where we came from, remember what we were saved from. This is how you can talk to anyone about Jesus because we all without Jesus are in that same place. This isn’t to shame ourselves about past wrongs we have done. Jesus heals us from those past sins, they have been washed clean by His blood. But we must not think ourselves better than anyone else.
To be sensible of our corruption and abhor our own transgressions is the first symptom of spiritual health.
John Charles Ryle (Bishop of Liverpool)
This is part of growing spiritually that we do not forget that it is easy to fall back in that trap of sin but because of the Savior we can throw the life ring out to someone else to help them as we have been there before. It isn’t about shamming ourselves or not forgiving ourselves. It is about understanding that feeling we had when we were dead in our sins. When we can understand that we can move forward in our lives and help others to do the same.
in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
The spirit that Paul is referring to is that of Satan. The one that is in the work of those that are disobedient. Again, we have all been in situations where we gave into the cravings of our flesh or our desires. We were under the wrath of God. Here is one of the greatest false teachings of satan. That freedom means you can do whatever you want. Paul takes that and flips that notion on it’s head. Satan takes the true freedom that Jesus offers and corrupts that message. Freedom isn’t the ability to do anything you want. That is a trap that almost all of us fall into and that includes myself. The ability to indulge in every desire that we have only leads to destruction. You can pick any “vice” that you want to and all those roads lead to one place. Can you do those things? Yeah of course you can but it will not end well. The very freedoms that world offers end up taking over your life. It isn’t a very free after all. It costs you something. Now we take those trappings and beam them straight into our pockets. People of all ages are getting trapped in fantasy worlds that they create. People of all ages turn to substances instead of the Lord. The world is a broken place and it has been since the fall in the garden of Eden. It will continue to be broken until the Lord Jesus Christ comes back to us.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
To save your life, you must lose the life you had. It is a complete transformation in desires, priorities and putting our trust only in Jesus. The alternative is a life controlled by cravings.
I have the ability to sing but it doesn’t mean that I should do it. We must be careful and the church must be the watchman on the wall because we were deserving of the wrath.
Now to the good part though
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
God made us truly alive with Jesus. God loved us so much that by His grace He gives us true life. That true life we will get to at the end. This is what freedom truly is though, the ability to navigate the world and know that God is running things. The ability to see the beauty of God all around you. The freedom to live a life free from the trappings of the world. The freedom not be stuck but to be able to grow in our faith and trust in God. We were dead in our transgressions and yet Jesus shows up in those moments, those Kairos moments and He extends His hand to us.
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
We are the very people that Jesus came for. He came for those that were lost and stuck in their sins. By that very grace that verse from Jesus we are made a new creation in Him.
The grace of God gets even better though, as we are not just saved
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
These two verses are two of the reasons that you can have hope every single day of your life. It spans across every trial and tribulation that you will face in life and you will face them. There will be difficult seasons of life but they are only seasons. It may not always seem like that but those trials and tribulations will end. In the place of those trials and tribulations. In the place of those sins and shame , you are raised up and seated with the King of Kings. You are raised up with Jesus. There will be a day when that trumpet blows and we are raised up with Jesus. That is what our focus needs to be every single day. Because every single day we get closer to that day. This is the ultimate gift of grace. You not only are freed from your sins but you are also seated with Christ Jesus. That is what the true freedom of Jesus gets you. This is how I have hope even in the darkest times.
“In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.”
Saint John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross wrote an amazing epic poem called the dark night of the soul in 1577 and 1579 while John was in prison. The main point of the poem is that every person goes through the long dark night of the soul. However the central difference between people is their belief in God. God can lead you out of that dark night and only God. Without God we are lost.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
By grace we are saved. We have done a lot with justification by faith during a few sermons. Here is the important part to also remember, so that no one can boast. We have been where people are , and we have hope because of Jesus. It has nothing to do with me at all, if I ever say something that helps you please remember that it wasn’t me. It was all Jesus. Everything is because of Jesus. Which gets us to our closing scripture for today.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
This verse is why we did Jeremiah for the call to worship. This is where the predestination gets very interesting. This verse just explodes my mind. You are the handiwork of God. The creator of all things, created you. He created man to have fellowship with Him to have a relationship with Him. We will dwell with Him for eternity. We were created for good works and He prepared that in advance. He knew what kind of person you should be. Now on our side of the equation we do not always get that correct. But the almighty Lord of this world has something for you to do. A good work for you to do. It isn’t simply just believing in Jesus. God wants everyone to come to Jesus and that is why Jesus paid the price for all of us. When you are able to break free of the bondage of sin you can see clearly. You can see clearly what God wants you to do.
One more point to make. This work isn’t depended on age. That isn’t how God works. Abraham was an old man when Issac was born. David was anointed king as a teenager. The Bible is full of people of all ages that answered the call to do good works.
Just like Jeremiah, just like Moses and basically everyone else in the Bible, we will probably think it is much to big for us to do.
I promise you it isn’t because of one reason. Jesus walks next to you.
Let us pray.
